


Bifurcation

by octopus_in_space



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: DFAB reader, F/M, Not sure this relationship will be kosher, Reader-Insert, Talon suprise!, Who knows where this is going
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 17:32:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9082477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/octopus_in_space/pseuds/octopus_in_space
Summary: BifurcateVerb | bi·fur·cateTo divide into two branches or parts.
  --
  A story of regret and attempts at repenting, with mixed results.
  (In which the Reader is a defector from Talon.)





	

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D?  
> Who knows where this is going? I don't.
> 
> Just needed something different from the other fic I'm writing.  
> 

You felt Soldier:76’s voice flow around you - an even, unfailing stream of sound, with a slight edge of static courtesy of the visor he wore.

 

The meetings he held were usually ten to fifteen minutes long, short and to the point because neither he nor his audience had the patience to sit in a meeting room for much longer than that, and most of the missions that were being run in the last couple of weeks were fairly straightforward.

 

It was truly a blessing as Winston’s meetings, while more open and relaxed, could easily last upward of an hour.

 

You had tuned out most of the meeting, nodding in the appropriate times and making thoughtful sounds where needed, as you had already read the mission briefing. As usual, you were the only one who did, and as a consequence, were the only one not getting a new asshole from the Soldier every other week.

 

Something in the way Soldier’s tone of speaking changed caught your attention, and you found yourself becoming very interested. The scenario he was describing had one huge, glaring, flaw that could end in casualties on the wrong side - your side!

 

This realization jarred you deeply, and you glanced around the room, looking at your teammates.

 

The pair of Junkers cut the most irregular and and obvious figures, an island of their own on the far side of the room. You saw Junkrat tapping his pegleg restlessly, it making a soft _tak-tak-tak_ sound, having mentally checked out of the meeting after realizing it wouldn’t be over anytime soon - he had come to this conclusion sooner than you had. A slight air of defeat and frustration emanated from Roadhog, and you hoped Junkrat would realize he was slowly pushing his bodyguard over the edge _before_ Roadhog beat him with his own pegleg.

 

To the right of the Junkers, sat Torbjorn, looking particularly grumpy due to his proximity to the jittery Junker, and at Soldier’s unusual verbosity. It didn’t help that he and Soldier were at odds lately, due to an accidental insult towards Torbjorn’s works that Soldier refused to acknowledge. Instead, the Soldier kept teasing the older man here and there, and if you hadn’t known better, you would have guessed that it was an inside joke between the two of them that lasted for decades - how, you did not know, as Soldier had only joined the team a couple of months ago . . .

 

Reinhardt sat to your right, his brow furrowed deeply. You saw his moustache wiggle, as though he was getting ready to speak but  could not find the words. He had an air of restrained energy around him, which was fitting. Reinhardt was almost always in motion - talking, gesturing, doing something. He was the most energetic and lively person you had ever met, bar none.

 

You understood what was keeping him from speaking. It was the same thing stilling your tongue for the moment - the Soldier hated to be questioned. It never went well, even if he was in the wrong.

 

Sure, he would eventually come around and apologize if he felt it was needed, as he was deeply fair individual, and was as hard on himself as he was on others. The problem lay with the initial outburst.

 

Overall, he was friendly in a quieter way. His words, if taken into consideration without tone or supporting action, were brusque. His tone made them dryly teasing, and despite wearing his visor, he made a lot of eye contact and his body language was surprisingly expressive.

 

On good days, at least.

 

It seemed to you that his personality vacillated between being a grumpy old bastard and a charismatic, lively man who could charm mountains into moving. It varied based on location, but the difference was most visible here at Watchpoint:Gibraltar. You caught him moving around the base with an odd sort of familiarity oozing from him, as though he belonged to the base, and more than once he had startled you by quietly appearing from an unexpected route.

 

You had been at the base for a couple of months longer than he had, but didn’t even have half his ease of movement through the base. There were so many little things that didn’t add up . . .

 

However, when challenged, the Soldier was brutal. There was no friendliness or softening of words, only a precise, brutal takedown. He went straight for the jugular every time and it was excruciating, as most of the team functioned _like a team_ and had little to no standing defenses around each other. Even the Junkers has responded surprisingly quickly to the atmosphere.

Given that everyone exercised such trust and openness around and with each other, Soldier’s methods of retaliation was like being emotionally flayed alive.

 

Luckily, the old guard didn’t put up with his shit and gave back as good as they got, but with more grace. Where Soldier went in ham-fisted, Reinhardt, McCree, Tracer, and Torbjorn weren’t shy to call him out on his underhanded tactics. Winston still struggled occasionally, as such confrontations were not part of his nature - it was either kindness or unadulterated animal rage, and no middle ground. It was a good learning experience for both of them.

 

The Soldier wasn’t stupid enough to argue with Angela, especially after she cut off his medical supply once for a couple of weeks to teach him a lesson.

 

You wondered how the incoming new members would adapt, but left those thoughts for another time.

 

You, yourself, preferred not to engage in verbal altercations with him or anyone else. Your temper was such that if expressed, took days to cool off, if not weeks. If a grudge was born over the argument, you could avoid the target of your ire for months. It wasn’t something you liked about yourself, and you tried your best to manage your temper.

 

Which brought you to your current predicament.

 

Do you raise your concern and potentially save lives, at the cost of what could evolve into a verbal napalming on both ends and a potential cold war afterward, or do you wait until someone dies to callout his error?

 

You couldn’t let someone die out of fear of being reprimanded. The fault would lie as much with you as with the originator of the plan.

 

You straightened up in your seat, pushed your shoulders back, and lifted a hand off of the table, gesturing to Soldier that you had something to say.

 

He finished outlining the plan and gestured to you.

 

Shit, you weren’t prepared with words.

 

You looked at him, looked around at the room to remind yourself who was at stake, and took a deep, steadying breath. You knew you were fucked before you started.

 

“I think there’s an oversight in your plan.”

 

Phew, that was much better - you thought something blunter would escape, something along the lines of “You made a mistake,” or “You’re going to kill someone like that.”

 

He turned to face you, and you saw everyone else in the room do the same.

 

You could hear a pin drop in the room.

 

“If we approach like that, we’ll be exposed immediately. Talon might not be based there, but their reach is far, and I know for a fact that that approach is exactly what they’re expecting. They’ve watched you for a long time and know your tactics. You can’t use that approach here. Best case scenario, somewhere between one of all of us gets captured and interrogated, worst case scenario, one or all of us dies.”

 

By this point, you were standing, impassioned by your words.

 

You _knew_ these things deeply and viscerally, knew them like the sky was blue and the grass was green.

  

The silence stretched on, eye contact unbroken between you and the Soldier.

 

Well, eye-and-visor contact.

 

You felt your body tense and readied yourself for attack.

 

“Then let _yourself_ get caught. _You_ know Talon best.”

 

Oof, straight for the gut.

 

You slammed your hands on the desk.

 

“If I could ensure that only I got caught, you bet I would.” Your fingertips squeaked against the tabletop as you dragged them, your fingers forming claws.

 

If you could grab this table and throw it, you would.

 

“But I’m not god, and neither are you, so get over yourself. If you want to send us on a suicide mission, do it, but don’t bullshit us. Give us the option of choosing if and how to sacrifice our lives. Just because you would or can without risk, doesn’t mean we all can.”

 

You heard a growl emanate from the Solider.

 

“Just _trust_ me, it’ll work.”  
  
“Trust _you_ ? You’re ready to throw my _life_ away because I don’t agree with you. You want me to trust you like that?”

 

“Like you haven’t done that to yourself already?”

 

You felt yourself climbing onto the table before you realized what you were doing, mid-lunge towards the Solider. You could hear gasps and the clatter of chairs from everyone around you jumping to their feet, but nothing mattered except for the Soldier in front of you and you wrapping your hands around his throat, shoving those words

 

 _back into his mouth_ -

 

before abruptly being pulled back before making contact.

 

You let out a frustrated scream - one you felt resonate through your own body and the room - both from Soldier’s words and the surprise from being caught in mid-air and being suddenly caged.

 

Once you recognized that Reinhardt was the one restraining you, his arms wrapping around you and holding you securely (uncomfortably, effectively) against his chest, you relaxed, knowing you wouldn’t be released without calming down first.

 

Shit, one thing you definitely missed was the numbing from being at Talon. They saw your potential and balanced your off the wall temper. . .

 

You instantly felt a strong wave of guilt wash over you.

 

You _had_ done terrible things, without caring.

  
You had done them just to see if you could.

 

And boy, could you _do_ things.

 

You glared at the Soldier.

 

He was right and wrong.

 

“Regardless of my personal life - _which is not what we are discussing here -_ your current plan of action isn’t going to work. Crowd control,” you gestured with a hand toward the Junkers, your movement restricted as you were still hanging in the air, held by Reinhardt, “And defense,” gesturing to Torbjorn with the same gesture, and then swinging your legs to indicate the behemoth holding you.

 

“It’s too many loud people for something that should be a quick in-and-out. On top of it, you’re giving away too much information about who is working with you. They could easily tip off the wrong people, because, as much as they use their own people as cannon fodder, they will eventually put two and two together, and before you know it, the government has cracked down on us and we’re all checked into comfy cells for violating the PETRAS act, if we’re lucky enough that they’re the first ones to get to us.”

 

“If you go about it the way you outlined here, we may as well send out invitations to Talon to meet us there.”

 

You paused, deciding that maybe you had gone too far into insulting territory and decided to switch tactics. You observed Soldier for a moment, trying to gauge how he was receiving what you had said so far.

 

“If you want me to trust you, _tell_ me why you think your plan will work, instead of _shitting_ on me.”

 

You quieted down here, giving the Soldier an opportunity to talk. That, and your throat had dried out a bit. You don’t remember the last time you had talked that much.

 

Since you joined Overwatch, you had been very cautious about speaking. It was taxing to limit yourself, but you were afraid that a verbal slip-up would end in your being drop kicked out of the door and straight into the sea.

 

Everyone had been made aware of your previous association, and welcomed you with surprisingly open arms. You guessed that this was because they didn’t know the extent of your contributions to Talon’s reign, and you were very, _very_ careful not to share too much.

 

You didn’t want to think about it, much less put to words the things you had done.

 

So, you had limited yourself to giving pointers here and there when needed, and providing general knowledge on operating procedures to aid in mission planning.

 

The Soldier, while originally skeptical, had slowly warmed up to your advice over a couple of missions, after seeing that you didn’t immediately betray them and get everyone caught in Talon’s clutches.

 

For some reason, for this mission, he had not included his actual execution plans in the mission report, nor consulted you on it.

 

It raised a bright red flag, but you didn’t have enough information to see where he was going with it. Probably a test of your allegiance, but why now after so long? It annoyed you that he didn’t just confront you about whatever he was concerned about and have a nice long, potentially angry talk, but two could play this game. It was probably better that Reinhardt was here as a referee anyway.

 

Maybe he wanted to collect more information? You knew how it was to want to experience certain things for yourself and see the reactions gathered from certain events. . .

 

You resisted the urge to shake the thoughts out of your head, unwilling to break eye contact with the Soldier.

 

You felt a snort from behind you, a breath skating across the back of your neck, and flinched, having momentarily forgotten that you were being held up against Reinhardt’s chest.

 

From Soldier’s sigh, you figured that Reinhardt gave him some variation of A Meaningful Look.

 

“Fine.”

 

It sounded like it physically pained him to relent. A part of you was savagely gleeful and it warmed you.

 

You smushed that feeling with extreme prejudice, but not before deciding to wait for Soldier to continue speaking. You weren’t going to make it easy.

 

“What do you suggest?”

 

You inhaled and closed your eyes, thinking it over.

 

He probably wanted to use the Junkers as interference, a red herring, but would have to be careful about timing and arranging transport. If it looked too coordinated, the tactic would backfire. If you split up the two Junkers, it would look even odder.

 

Torbjorn was also famous, or infamous - however you wanted to look at it. He wasn’t known for traveling much after Overwatch's disbanding, and suddenly showing up halfway around the world in Brazil would look suspicious.

 

Reinhardt was more well-traveled, but as a former Crusader, definitely cut a recognizable figure. More so in Europe than South America, but the combination of people at your disposal was unique and screamed “Overwatch was here” via fireworks.

 

Soldier, alone, could work . . . . but no one was sure he would come back. You noticed Winston’s avoidance of solo missions, especially where the Soldier was involved, so someone would have to go with him.

 

So, the only other option . . . . was you.

 

Given your current temper and his surprise insistence at tying you up with your own previous actions (the most satisfying form of justice), you weren’t sure _either_ of you would make it to the goal.

  
If you did, your new addition would hopefully balance you two out.

 

So, all you had to do was make sure you and Soldier could trek to South America without killing each other or yourselves and meet up with your brand new volunteer.

 

Easy.

 

You opened your eyes and smiled wryly.

 

“Since we need stealth, I suggest everyone else takes some time off after prepping the sick bay, because it’ll be just you and me.”

 

With the way his eyebrows quickly reached for the sky, you could tell this wasn’t what he expected.

 

At all.

 

Neither did Reinhardt as he dropped you out of surprise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reader's got ~*~problems~*~  
> So does Soldier:76.
> 
> (minor edits applied on 3/26/17 to fix misspelled words and change the flow of certain sentences and events)


End file.
